


Flip the Script

by inkforhumanhands



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Karen Page, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Guess who needs saving this time I'll give you a hint it's not Karen, Kidnapping, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03, Ray Nadeem lives, Reporter Karen Page, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkforhumanhands/pseuds/inkforhumanhands
Summary: Karen ended the call and stared back down at the ransom note lying face up on her desk. She chewed her lip. Was it possible that they’d actually kidnapped him and that it was her fault?
Relationships: Karen Page & Ray Nadeem, Matt Murdock & Karen Page
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Flip the Script

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyMaigrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMaigrey/gifts).



> This was supposed to be for the hurt/comfort prompt but it kind of got away from me a bit and turned into a riff on Karen getting herself into situations where she needs to be saved (hence the title). Hope you still enjoy it!

Karen had actually laughed when she first opened the envelope, both the idea and its presentation were so absurd. Magazine letters crudely pasted together into a few short sentences stared back at her, wrinkled where the liquid glue used had seeped through the thin paper underneath the pressure of someone’s finger. It must have been the work of someone only passingly familiar with ransoms as they were shown on TV, either that or someone with an odd sense of humor and no other creative outlet. The unmistakable threat conveyed by the message notwithstanding, this somehow put Karen at ease.

She re-read the letter one more time to make sure she hadn’t missed any important details, even though it was pretty clear cut.

TOOK YOUR BLIND FRIEND. BRING ALL COPIES OF MALONE DOCUMENTS TO EXCHANGE. 11P.M. WAREHOUSE 4 AT DOCKS. NO SHOW BLIND MAN DIES. NO POLICE.

Karen bit down on the inside of her mouth to keep herself from smiling inappropriately again. She couldn’t believe Malone and his men would bluff this hard, although she did have to allow that they had no way of knowing her blind friend’s dangerous hobby. Matt could more than take care of himself, and Karen was sure Malone’s henchmen were in for a rude surprise when they tried to kidnap him. The past tense used in the letter naturally gave her some pause, but if the sloppiness of the ransom note and, honestly, their attempt to cover up their money laundering so far were any indication, it was all too likely that they’d composed the message prematurely.

Still, she supposed she’d check up on Matt all the same. He might appreciate the heads up at least. She dialed his number and waited for him to pick up. It was already six o’clock, so when it rang on and on she imagined he was making his way home from the office and it was too much bother to fish his phone out of his pocket while trying to navigate. In the back of her mind she knew she was rationalizing, and that if Matt were nearby the subtle increase in her heart rate would be obvious to him. But that was the back of her mind, and the front of her mind thought to try Foggy instead.

He picked up on the second ring, dependable as always. “Karen?”

“Hey, Foggy. Just calling to see if you knew where Matt was.”

“Funny you should ask,” Foggy said sarcastically, “I’ve been trying to nail him down all day. No doubt he’s off on some all-important mission the likes of which us mortals don’t need to bother our silly little heads with. Or, like, don’t need a ‘Hey, Fogs, won’t be coming in to work today on account of my martyr complex.’”

Karen’s laugh was obligatory and abbreviated as actual worry crept to the fore of her thoughts. She tried to keep it out of her voice. “Well I’m sure whatever it was wasn’t planned if he didn’t at least fake sick. Tell him to call me if he gets in touch with you, alright?”

They ended the call, and Karen stared back down at the ransom note lying face up on her desk. She chewed her lip. Was it possible that they’d actually kidnapped him and that it was her fault?

* * *

Matt had been having an off day even before a bunch of goons surrounded him on his way out of his apartment that morning. For one thing, several nights in a row out as Daredevil had been taking a toll on his sleep schedule, and he woke up after only three hours of sleep woefully tired. The kind of tired where you pour coffee on your cereal instead of in your mug. For another, he seemed to be coming down with a head cold and the balloon of pressure expanding in his sinuses reached even his ears. Matthew Michael Murdock briefly considered taking a day off.

But because he was Matthew Michael Murdock, it remained only a brief consideration. Instead, he dressed himself precariously, grabbed his cane, and headed for the door. The brisk outside air met his skin, and he lamented that touch was really the only one of his senses working at full capacity. Maybe he’d treat himself to a taxi instead of needlessly suffering through a muted map of moving people on the street.

He had just committed to the decision when he felt the presence of a few people closing in on him. He could barely hear the delicate rattling of mechanical parts that suggested a gun in one of their pockets. Men with guns trying to get the jump on Matt wasn’t a rare occurrence in and of itself, but, factoring in broad daylight and Matt’s lawyerly attire, this certainly wasn’t routine.

He wasn’t sure what to do. Protecting his identity was of high priority, but so was figuring out who these guys were—or rather, whose guys they were. He was, however, torn between risking his safety pretending to be Matt Murdock and not wanting to get killed without at least fighting back. He added “dilemmas” to his growing list of things wrong with that day.

“Murdock, you’re coming with us,” one of the guys grunted, and Matt felt the rush of air that accompanied his nod to another of his harassers. Matt tensed, focusing in on the receiver of the nod and trying to pinpoint the location of his gun. He didn’t hear it leave his pocket, and the hand stretching toward him sounded reassuringly empty. It closed hard around his arm, yanking it behind him.

“Who are you—” Matt started to ask, when his deadened nose picked up a scent like acetone. He turned to elbow the man restraining him in the face with his free arm, but it was too late. Someone else pressed a chloroform-soaked rag to his mouth.

* * *

Karen pressed her hands to her mouth as her mind raced. What had seemed merely an amusing footnote to her investigation into an astoundingly incompetent mob operation a minute ago was now something else entirely. The only way to be close to Matt Murdock and not drown in constant anxiety was to convince yourself to trust in his ability to get out of even the most dire of scrapes. Doing that had always been a little harder now that she thought she’d lost him once and then had seen the array of scars spanning his body, but believing in him was how Karen survived his friendship, and she thought it must be the same for Foggy. That illusion was now starting to crack. Since it was her mess, she thought the least she could do would be to patch it back together before Foggy noticed.

That left her with few allies. She found herself on the phone again.

“Ray Nadeem speaking.”

“Agent Nadeem, it’s Karen Page. Regarding our mutual friend.”

* * *

Matt’s grasp on consciousness was too hazy to be worth anything. He was vaguely aware of pain biting into his wrists, but even that paled to the throbbing in his head. Someone was talking and then they weren’t. He was awake and then he wasn’t.

* * *

“Just to be clear, I could lose my job over this. Not only acting alone but letting a civilian tag along?”

“Just to be clear,” Karen echoed, “you _should_ have lost your job over working for Fisk.”

“Yeah, you don’t think I know that? But the Bureau lost so many agents to the justice system after Fisk they needed all the trained bodies they could get. That’s not my fault. I was prepared to go to jail.”

Karen chose to refrain from engaging any further in the assigning of blame, instead thanking Nadeem for not insisting she stay behind.

“Yeah, just remember what I said. If you have to shoot, go for the legs. Let’s try to avoid that altogether though,” he said as he parked his car in an area out of the way.

* * *

Matt awoke again, this time aware enough to make out that he was zip-tied to a chair. Everything else remained muffled by his pounding head and the sickness pressing on the inner walls of it until a singular unit of sound leaked through. “…Malone said…”

Malone? Wasn’t that the smalltime mob boss Karen had been investigating?

“Looks like he’s awake again. Give him another dose.”

“I’ve just gotta say it again, I _really_ don’t think chloroform’s supposed to be used like that, Tony.” 

“Nobody asked you. Just do it already.”

Matt faded out again.

* * *

It was nine, and Karen and Nadeem were two hours early for the hostage exchange. This was part of the plan. It turned out that the FBI had been keeping tabs on Malone’s operation for a while via an undercover agent who flitted around between several of the lesser crime organizations. His information had left the Bureau with the same general impression of incompetency that Karen’s own investigations had led her to. The only reason they hadn’t already moved to shut it down despite quite the collection of easily-gotten evidence was that the group filled a niche that might otherwise go to someone more capably violent.

The agent, Barney, had told Nadeem over the phone that if you could count on Malone for anything, it was being at least ten minutes late, even if he’d set the time himself. He was a busy guy, or so he said constantly. When Nadeem had asked whether he’d be likely to be at the warehouse or not ahead of time, Barney laughed so loudly into the speaker that he’d had to hold the phone a good six inches from his ear. “A kidnapping? I’d say he’s got two guys on guard duty max.”

So it was with a certain confidence that Nadeem, Karen behind him, now stood next to a stack of crates outside a back door to the warehouse, gun drawn.

* * *

Somewhere, dimly, Matt was sure that the only reason he was awake again had something to do with the vice-like grip on his chest stopping any oxygen from getting in. He made the motion to take a deep breath but his lungs gave up halfway through. A noise sounded somewhere nearby, but he was underwater.

* * *

Nadeem tried the door, and to both his and Karen’s amazement it was unlocked. He raised a finger to his lips and Karen nodded, both hands gripping her pistol. They slipped in to the warehouse and ducked immediately behind a close-by stack of gigantic metal tubes. Two voices reverberated throughout the space.

“He don’t look so good, Tony. I told you we were gonna overdo it.”

“And I thought I told _you_ that nobody asked for your opinion, asshole.”

“Look at him though; he’s shaking. Boss’s gonna be mad if we end up having to get rid of a body.”

Karen shot Nadeem a look of alarm. He indicated that she should sneak to another point of cover, as per their plan. She peered out from behind the tube pile and made sure that Malone’s men had their backs turned toward her before crossing the gap between it and the next one. She repeated this until she was on the side of the warehouse across from Nadeem, but still on the far end from where the men had Matt.

With Karen in place, Nadeem clinked his gun on the metal.

“What was that?”

“You go check. I’ll keep an eye on this guy.”

The one that wasn’t Tony moved toward Nadeem. Karen waited out of sight. Now that she was at a different angle, she could see Matt and the chair they’d tied him to. Not-Tony was right: he didn’t look so good. There was no blood that she could see, but he was having some sort of tremors and his skin was incredibly pale. Had they drugged him? She needed to get to him now.

A groan sounded from Nadeem’s direction, and Karen hoped it was because he’d performed the chokehold he’d been aiming for. Tony, a bald and imposing man now that Karen could see him, must have heard the mild disturbance too, because he turned in its direction and called out tentatively. “Vinny, what’s going on?”

_Go check go check go check_ , she urged him in her mind. Matt’s head slumped forward as he continued to shake in his chair. Karen was a hair’s breadth away from abandoning all caution and shooting Tony in the chest, never mind the goddamn leg. Finally, he took a few steps towards the area where his associate had disappeared, drawing a handgun from an inner pocket.

Karen seized her chance. She crept toward Matt, praying that Nadeem would take care of Tony before he could turn around and spot her.

“Matt,” she whispered. No reaction. He must have passed out. She held her breath as she got to work on the ties binding his wrists. His hands were tinged blue.

She looked back to where Nadeem had been hidden, hoping for a sign that he’d incapacitated Tony as well as the other one. It was eerily silent, only Matt’s slow, shallow breaths and the pounding of her heart in her ears to keep her company.

She massaged some blood back into Matt’s hands, hoping too that it might bring him back around to consciousness. She was rewarded for her efforts with a low moan. “Matt? Matt, I need you to wake up for me.” She strained her ears frantically for any sign of Nadeem or Tony. Still nothing.

And then there was a shout. It was her name; it was Nadeem’s voice. She saw a gun trained on her and Nadeem limping up behind the guy who aimed it, himself gun-less and bleeding near his eye. She snatched her pistol from where she’d placed it on the warehouse floor and squeezed the trigger without hesitation. Tony roared, instinctively grabbing at his foot. With his attention unfocused, Nadeem disarmed him from behind and cuffed him.

Just like that it was over. They could focus on getting Matt to safety. “Chloroform poisoning,” Nadeem said, bending down and picking up the bottle set by a window.

Karen knelt next to Matt and raised his left arm to brace him against her shoulder. “Help me with his other side.”

Matt’s head was filled with lead and his lungs were half their usual size and he was sure as one could be that his brain had been disappeared, but he’d know that voice anywhere. “Karen?” he croaked.

“Oh, thank God.”

* * *

The beeping from the heart monitor matching the rhythm of his heart was all Matt needed to discern that he was lying in a hospital bed. A lingering headache and slightly stuffy nose aside, he felt much clearer. A familiar presence seated on the sofa by the window tapped another on the shoulder.

“Foggy, he’s awake.”

His friends could barely ask him how he was feeling before he demanded to know what had transpired in the time between his being drugged and Karen’s finding him. Foggy harrumphed at being left out, although Matt was grateful there was at least someone that hadn’t been placed in danger on account of his failure to avoid what should have been an obvious kidnapping.

Karen, for her part, though apologetic at first that Matt had been dragged into something she had been working on, soon lost herself in describing her role in the rescue. Action suited her, he had to admit.


End file.
